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| FAMILY the Bonds that UNITE Us... |
Family, and what this word means to us... Immediate Family, Extended Family, Friends as Family... I started a Google video chat with my son (my immediate family), who is studying in New York City, while I am travelling currently in Berlin, Germany last evening. New York is experiencing "Winter Storm Jonas" at 26.8" of snowfall since yesterday, narrowly missing tying the previous record of 26.9" from February 2006. My son had walked to a friend's dorm close by where he answered my call. Needless to say I was surprised he would have ventured out into the snowstorm without a valid reason for doing so ...needless to say! He introduced me to his friends as if it was just another sunny, vibrant day in New York City hanging out with friends. One young lady recognized me saying "I met your mom before with you", as he passed his iPhone around so they could speak to me half way around the world... modern technology you gotta' LUV it! In our conversation after I voiced my motherly concern "what are you doing out in this snowstorm?", he responded "it was just a short walk, and besides I'm hanging out with my framily", and we are getting ready to eat breakfast together detailing what they were about to eat.
framily noun [countable] informalpeople who are not related to you but are your very close friends and are as important to you as your family 'Friends are increasingly becoming our framily as we search for another support network ... A study has found that we are increasingly making framilies for ourselves by surrounding ourselves with friends.'
I experienced a bittersweet feeling while watching my son with a mixture of pride that he no longer depended on me for this kind of relationship, and that he could actually create it for himself...but at the same time a feeling of lose, truly being alone where I am with my memories, and curious about what the word he used "framily" meant. I excused myself from the call telling him to enjoy himself, and get back to his dorm room safely. I allowed myself to experience the feelings I was feeling, trying to find a comfortable place...but all I could do was to just BE in it, and allow it to bring me to the other side, which did not begin to appear until the following morning...NOW.
I am aware I am in the throes of TRANSITION during this journey I am on right now far away from being the immediate family of "mother & son" we shared when he was younger. Last night before I went to bed I read a passage that helped me to begin to understand where I am right now "God does not bring you to the moment of birth and not deliver – He is not a man that He should lie. The very fact that you are fighting for it, travailing for it, is the undeniable truth that it already exists. It is not something you are trying to create or speak into existence, it already exists. Just as a baby already exists in a mother's womb...never forget that." an excerpt from "Travail and Birth Leads to Promise" by Kim Potter This passage helped me to understand the transition into my own life, as my son is creating his own even in a snowstorm!
This passage refers to MY transition, that which already exists, that which I am travailing to give birth to just as I travailed to give birth to my son many years ago, the NEW BIRTH that leads to PROMISE!
FAMILY, or whatever you CHOOSE to know it as and experience it... THE BONDS THAT UNITE US!
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